Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live web cam on the summit of near 13,800 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. This web cam is available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon shining down during the night at times. Plus, during the nights you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise and sunset too… depending upon weather conditions. Here’s the Haleakala Crater webcam on Maui – if it’s working.

Aloha Paragraphs

Keauhou Bay…on the Big Island of Hawaii

Trade winds, with just a few off and on passing
windward showers…hardly any leeward sections

This is the last full day of spring…with summer
starting Thursday evening at 705pm

The following numbers represent the most recent top wind gusts (mph), along with directions as of Wednesday evening:

Trade winds, with day to day variations in strength…remaining active through the next week at least. Here’s a weather chart showing a near 1028 millibar high pressure system located to the northeast of our islands, with a new near 1026 millibar high far to our west-northwest. A weak cold front to the north of the state, is moving by from west to east. This weather feature will slow down our trade winds a bit. As we get into the weekend, they will strengthen a notch…continuing on into next week.

A trade wind weather pattern will prevail, with just a few off and on windward showers.Satellite imageryshows high cirrus clouds over some parts of the Big Island…and to the south and east of there. Here’s a larger satellite picture showing the extend of these high cirrus. At lower levels, there’s patches of cumulus clouds surrounding the islands. Here’s the looping radar image, showing showers passing by along our windward coasts and slopes, and over the offshore waters as well. As the trade winds remain active, these showers will spread over into the windward sides at times. The overall trend however will be for somewhat drier weather over the next few days. I’ll be back with more updates during the evening, I hope you have a great last full day of spring wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

World-wide tropical cyclone activity:

Atlantic Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones

TROPICAL CYCLONE FORMATION IS NOT EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS

Caribbean Sea:There are no active tropical cyclones

TROPICAL CYCLONE FORMATION IS NOT EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS.

Gulf of Mexico: Tropical Storm Barry has made landfall over the state of Veracruz, Mexico. This tropical cyclone was located about 40 miles northwest of Veracruz…in eastern Mexico. Maximum sustained winds were 40 mph. The present movement was west at 05 mph. Here’s the National Hurricane Center’s (NHC) graphical track map, along with asatellite image. This tropical system will bring heavy, flooding rainfall to southern Mexico…primarily the state of Veracruz during the next few days.

ELSEWHERE…TROPICAL CYCLONE FORMATION IS NOT EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS

Eastern Pacific: There are no active tropical cyclones

Tropical cyclone formation is not expected during the next 48 hours

Here’s a wide satellite image that covers the entire area between Mexico, out through the central Pacific…to the International Dateline.

Western Pacific Ocean: Tropical Storm 04W (Leepi) remains active over the western Pacific, located about 132 NM west-northwest of Kadena AB, Okinawa, Japan. Here’s the JTWC graphical track map…along with the satellite image showing TD 04W. Here’s a link to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC). Meanwhile, there’s an area of disturbed weather in the South China Sea that has a high chance of developing into a tropical cyclone within 24 hours. Here’s a satellite image showing this disturbance…along with TS 04W. Here’s a graphical map showing this area to the west of Luzon Island in the Philippines.

Interesting: Dead zones are hypoxic (low-oxygen) areas in the world’s oceans and large lakes, caused by excessive nutrient pollution from human activities coupled with other factors that deplete the oxygen required to support most marine life in bottom and near-bottom water. In the 1970s oceanographers began noting increased instances of dead zones. These occur near inhabited coastlines, where aquatic life is most concentrated.

The vast middle portions of the oceans, which naturally have little life, are not considered dead zones. Scientists are expecting a very large dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico and a smaller than average hypoxic level in the Chesapeake Bay this year, based on several NOAA-supported forecast models.

NOAA-supported modelers at the University of Michigan, Louisiana State University, and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium are forecasting that this year’s Gulf of Mexico hypoxic dead zone will be between 7,286 and 8,561 square miles which could place it among the ten largest recorded. That would range from an area the size of Connecticut, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia combined on the low end to the New Jersey on the upper end. The high estimate would exceed the largest ever reported, 8,481 square miles in 2002. Aspects of weather, including wind speed, wind direction, precipitation and temperature, also impact the size of dead zones.
The Gulf estimate is based on the assumption of no significant tropical storms in the two weeks preceding or during the official measurement survey cruise scheduled from July 25-August 3 2013. If a storm does occur the size estimate could drop to a low of 5344 square miles.

This year’s prediction for the Gulf reflects flood conditions in the Midwest that caused large amounts of nutrients to be transported from the Mississippi watershed to the Gulf. Last year’s dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico was the fourth smallest on record due to drought conditions, covering an area of approximately 2,889 square miles, an area slightly larger than the state of Delaware. The overall average between 1995-2012 is 5,960 square miles.

A second NOAA-funded forecast, for the Chesapeake Bay, calls for a smaller than average dead zone in the nation’s largest estuary. The forecasts from researchers at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and the University of Michigan has three parts: a prediction for the mid-summer volume of the low-oxygen hypoxic zone, one for the mid-summer oxygen-free anoxic zone, and a third that is an average value for the entire summer season.

The forecasts call for a mid-summer hypoxic zone of 1.46 cubic miles, a mid-summer anoxic zone of 0.26 to 0.38 cubic miles, and a summer average hypoxia of 1.108 cubic miles, all at the low end of previously recorded zones. Last year the final mid-summer hypoxic zone was 1.45 cubic miles.

This is the seventh year for the Bay outlook which, because of the shallow nature of large areas of the estuary, focuses on water volume or cubic miles, instead of square mileage as used in the Gulf. “Monitoring the health and vitality of our nation’s oceans, waterways, and watersheds is critical as we work to preserve and protect coastal ecosystems,” said Kathryn D. Sullivan, Ph.D., acting under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and acting NOAA administrator. “These ecological forecasts are good examples of the critical environmental intelligence products and tools that help shape a healthier coast, one that is so inextricably linked to the vitality of our communities and our livelihoods.”

During May 2013, stream flows in the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers were above normal resulting in more nutrients flowing into the Gulf. According to USGS estimates, 153,000 metric tons of nutrients flowed down the rivers to the northern Gulf of Mexico in May, an increase of 94,900 metric tons over last year’s 58,100 metric tons, when the region was suffering through drought. The 2013 input is an increase of 16 percent above the average nutrient load estimated over the past 34 years.

For the Chesapeake Bay, USGS estimates 36,600 metric tons of nutrients entered the estuary from the Susquehanna and Potomac rivers between January and May, which is 30 percent below the average loads estimated from 1990 to 2013.

“Coastal hypoxia is proliferating around the world,” said Donald Boesch, Ph.D., president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. “It is important that we have excellent abilities to predict and control the largest dead zones in the United States. The whole world is watching.”

Despite the Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Nutrient Task Force’s goal to reduce the dead zone to less than 2,000 square miles, it has averaged 5,600 square miles over the last five years. Demonstrating the link between the dead zone and nutrients from the Mississippi River, this annual forecast continues to provide guidance to federal and state agencies as they work on the 11 implementation actions outlined by the Task Force in 2008 for mitigating nutrient pollution.

Dead zones are reversible. The Black Sea dead zone, previously the largest in the world, largely disappeared between 1991 and 2001 after fertilizers became too costly to use following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the demise of centrally planned economies in Eastern and Central Europe. Fishing has again become a major economic activity in the region.

While the Black Sea cleanup was largely unintentional and involved a drop in hard-to-control fertilizer usage, the U.N. has advocated other cleanups by reducing large industrial emissions. From 1985 to 2000, the North Sea dead zone had nitrogen reduced by 37% when policy efforts by countries on the Rhine River reduced sewage and industrial emissions of nitrogen into the water. Other cleanups have taken place along the Hudson River and San Francisco Bay.